[Rhodes22-list] PIC Authority

[Slim]

Brad,

Of course this has been a hot topic here, and there has been a bombardment
of letters to the editor both pro and con.  Were they indeed terrorists?
Clearly not.  Were they trying to stage an incident?  Who knows?

For them to be praying before they got on the plane was SOP.  It was simply
that time of day for their evening prayers.  For them to say "Allah Akbar"
is roughly the equivalent of a Christian/Jew saying "Amen."  For them to be
trash-talking the government is SOP too.  I do that.  Who doesn't?  For them
to sit in seats other than what's assigned--I've done that many times.

When you put all those together, however, it's going to raise some eyebrows
to be sure.  But were they presumed guilty until proven innocent?  Yes.  Is
that appropriate?  Unfortunately, I suppose it is.  Were USAir and
passengers and crew correct in their assumptions?  Obviously not.  Erring on
the side of caution?  Certainly.  Is this a case of Islamophobia?
Definitely.  No one would have even noticed had I done those things.  Should
we celebrate USAir ("Hat's off to USAir!") in their reaction?  Pathetic.
Nobody should be pleased with this, least of all USAir.  I doubt the
administrators at USAir share that exuberance.  All the hassle, delays,
expense, press, oh, and being wrong, is not something they're happy about.

Slim


On 12/6/06 9:18 AM, "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hat's off to USAir!  This is from the WSJ.  Brad
> 
> 
> 
> 
> HOMELAND SECURITY
> 
> 
> 
>     On a Wing and a Prayer
> 
>     Grievance theater at Minneapolis International Airport .
> 
> 
> 
>     BY DEBRA BURLINGAME
> 
>     Wednesday, December 6, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
> 
>     Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Those are the
> 
>     words that started it all. Six bearded imams are said to have shouted
> them
> 
>     out while offering evening prayers as they and 141 other passengers
> waited
> 
>     at the gate for their flight out of Minneapolis International Airport
> . It
> 
>     was three days before Thanksgiving. Allahu Akbar: God is great.
> 
>     Initial media reports of the incident did not include the disturbing
> 
>     details about what happened after they boarded US Airways flight 300,
> but
> 
>     the story quickly went national with provocative headlines: "Six
> Muslims
> 
>     Ejected from US Air Flight for Praying." Yes, they were praying--but
> let's
> 
>     be clear about this. The very last human sound on the cockpit voice
> 
>     recorder of United flight 93 before it screamed into the ground at 580
> 
> 
>     miles per hour is the sound of male voices shouting "Allahu Akbar" in
> a
> 
>     moment of religious ecstasy.
> 
>     They, too, were praying. The passengers and crew of flight 93 lost
> their
> 
>     valiant fight to take back the plane just one hour and 20 minutes
> after it
> 
>     pushed back from the gate. Until the hijackers stormed the cockpit
> door,
> 
>     they were just a handful of Middle Eastern-looking men on their way to
> 
> 
>     sunny California . So, yes, let's be exceedingly clear about the whole
> 
> 
>     matter. Some 3,000 men, women and children are dead because the
> unassuming
> 
>     people on those airplanes did not look at them and see murderers. Or
> 
>     dangerous Arabs. Or fanatical Muslims. They saw a few guys in chinos.
> 
> 
> 
>     In five years since the 9/11 attacks, U.S. commercial carriers have
> 
>     transported approximately 2.9 billion domestic and international
> 
>     passengers. It is a testament to the flying public, but, most of all,
> to
> 
>     the flight crews who put those planes into the air and who daily
> devote
> 
>     themselves to the safety and well-being of their passengers, that they
> 
> 
>     have refused to succumb to ethnic hatred, religious intolerance or
> 
>     irrational fear on those millions of flights. But they have not
> forgotten
> 
>     the sight of a 200,000-pound aircraft slicing through heavy steel and
> 
>     concrete as easily as a knife through butter. They still remember the
> 
>     voices of men and women in the prime of their lives saying final
> goodbyes,
> 
>     people who just moments earlier set down their coffee and looked out
> the
> 
>     window to a beautiful new morning. Today, when travelers and flight
> crews
> 
>     arrive at the airport, all the overheated rhetoric of the civil rights
> 
> 
>     absolutists, all the empty claims of government career bureaucrats,
> all
> 
>     the disingenuous promises of the election-focused politicians just
> fall
> 
>     away. They have families. They have responsibilities. To them, this is
> not
> 
>     a game or a cause. This is real life.
> 
>     Given that Islamic terrorists continue their obsession with turning
> 
>     airplanes into weapons of mass destruction, it is nothing short of
> obscene
> 
>     that these six religious leaders--fresh from attending a conference of
> the
> 
>     North American Imams Federation, featuring discussions on "Imams and
> 
>     Politics" and "Imams and the Media"--chose to turn that airport into a
> 
> 
>     stage and that airplane into a prop in the service of their need for
> 
>     grievance theater. The reality is, these passengers endured a
> frightening
> 
>     3 1/2-hour ordeal, which included a front-to-back sweep of the
> aircraft
> 
>     with a bomb-sniffing dog, in order to advance the provocative agenda
> of
> 
>     these imams in, of all the inappropriate places after 9/11, U.S.
> airports.
> 
> 
> 
>     "Allahu Akbar" was just the opening act. After boarding, they did not
> take
> 
>     their assigned seats but dispersed to seats in the first row of first
> 
>     class, in the midcabin exit rows and in the rear--the exact
> configuration
> 
>     of the 9/11 execution teams. The head of the group, seated closest to
> the
> 
>     cockpit, and two others asked for a seatbelt extension, kept on board
> for
> 
>     obese people. A heavy metal buckle at the end of a long strap, it can
> 
>     easily be used as a lethal weapon. The three men rolled them up and
> placed
> 
>     them on the floor under their seats. And lest this entire incident be
> 
>     written off as simple cultural ignorance, a frightened Arabic-speaking
> 
> 
>     passenger pulled aside a crew member and translated the imams'
> suspicious
> 
>     conversations, which included angry denunciations of Americans,
> furious
> 
>     grumblings about U.S. foreign policy, Osama Bin Laden and "killing
> 
>     Saddam."
> 
>     Predictably, these imams and their attorneys now suggest that another
> 
>     passenger who penned a frantic note of warning and slipped it to a
> flight
> 
>     attendant was somehow a hysterical Islamophobe. Let us remember that
> but
> 
>     for their performance at the gate this passenger might never have
> noticed
> 
>     these men or their behavior on board, much less have the slightest
> clue as
> 
>     to their religion or political passions. Of course, that was the point
> of
> 
>     the shouting. According to the police report, yet another alarmed
> 
>     passenger who frequently travels to the Middle East described a
> 
>     conversation with one of the imams. The 31-year-old Egyptian expressed
> 
> 
>     fundamentalist Muslim views, and stated the he would go to whatever
> 
>     measures necessary to obey all the tenets set out in the Koran.
> 
>     The activist Muslim American Society (MAS) issued a press release
> within
> 
>     hours of the incident, demanding an apology and announcing a "pray-in"
> at
> 
>     Reagan National Airport in Washington , D.C. Standing just a short
> distance
> 
>     from the Pentagon, where five years ago black plumes of smoke from the
> 
> 
>     crash of American Airlines flight 77 could be seen for miles, the
> 
>     assembled demonstrators complained that African-American Muslims,
> 
>     accustomed to "driving while black," must now cope with the injustice
> of
> 
>     "flying while Muslim." This brazen two-step is racial politics at its
> 
>     worst; none of the imams are African-American. MAS, which teaches an
> 
>     "Activist Training" program with lessons on "how to talk to the
> media,"
> 
>     must have been thrilled when one cable news outfit, suckered by the
> 
>     rhetoric, compared the imams' conduct to that of civil rights icon
> Rosa
> 
>     Parks, who refused to give up her bus seat in the face of
> institutional
> 
>     racism. One wonders what the parents of the three 11-year-olds who
> died on
> 
>     flight 77--all African-American kids on a National Geographic field
> 
>     trip--would make of this stunning comparison.
> 
>     Today, MAS Executive Director Mahdi Bray says his organization wants
> more
> 
>     than an apology. He wants to "hit [US Airways] where it hurts, the
> 
>     pocketbook," and, joined by the Council on American-Islamic Relations
> 
>     (CAIR), will seek compensation for the imams, civil and federal
> monetary
> 
>     sanctions, and new, sweeping legislation that will extract even bigger
> 
> 
>     penalties for airlines that engage in "racial and religious
> profiling." An
> 
>     investigation by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Civil
> 
> 
>     Rights and Civil Liberties is under way. Not incidentally, it is the
> 
>     "fatwa department" of MAS that pushed for segregated taxi lines that
> would
> 
>     permit Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis airport to reject
> passengers
> 
>     carrying alcohol.
> 
> 
> 
>     Here's what the flying public needs to know about airplanes and civil
> 
>     rights: Once your foot traverses the entranceway of a commercial
> airliner,
> 
>     you are no longer in a democracy in which everyone gets a vote and
> 
>     minority rights are affirmatively protected in furtherance of fuzzy,
> 
>     ever-shifting social policy. Ultimately, the responsibility for your
> 
>     personal safety and security rests on the shoulders of one person, the
> 
> 
>     pilot in command. His primary job is to safely transport you and your
> 
>     belongings from one place to another. Period.
> 
>     This is the doctrine of "captain's authority." It has a longstanding
> 
>     history and a statutory mandate, further strengthened after 9/11,
> which
> 
>     recognizes that flight crews are our last line of defense between the
> 
>     kernel of a terrorist plot and its lethal execution. The day we tell
> the
> 
>     captain of a commercial airliner that he cannot remove a problem
> passenger
> 
>     unless he divines beyond question what is in that passenger's head and
> 
> 
>     heart is the day our commercial aviation system begins to crumble.
> When a
> 
>     passenger's conduct is so disturbing and disruptive that reasonable,
> 
>     ordinary people fear for their lives, the captain must have the
> 
>     discretionary authority to respond without having to consider equal
> 
>     protection or First Amendment standards about which even trained
> lawyers
> 
>     with the clarity of hindsight might strongly disagree. The pilot in
> 
>     command can't get it wrong. At 35,000 feet, when multiple events are
> 
>     rapidly unfolding in real time, there is no room for error.
> 
>     We have a new, inviolate aviation standard after 9/11, which requires
> that
> 
>     the captain cannot take that airplane up so long as there are any
> 
>     unresolved issues with respect to the security of his airplane. At
> 
>     altitude, the cockpit door is barred and crews are instructed not to
> open
> 
>     them no matter what is happening in the cabin behind them. This is an
> 
>     extremely challenging situation for the men and women who fly those
> 
>     planes, one that those who write federal aviation regulations and the
> 
>     people who agitate for more restrictions on a captain's authority will
> 
> 
>     never have to face themselves.
> 
>     Likewise, flight attendants are confined in the back of the plane with
> 
> 
>     upwards of 200 people; they must be the eyes and ears, not just for
> the
> 
>     pilot but for us all. They are not combat specialists, however, and to
> 
> 
>     compel them to ignore all but the most unambiguous cases of suspicious
> 
> 
>     behavior is to further enable terrorists who act in ways meant to defy
> 
> 
>     easy categorization. As the American Airlines flight attendants who
> 
>     literally jumped on "shoe bomber" Richard Reid demonstrated, cabin
> crews
> 
>     are sharply attuned to unusual or abnormal behavior and they must not
> be
> 
>     second-guessed, or hamstrung by misguided notions of political
> 
>     correctness.
> 
>     Ultimately, the most despicable aspect about the imams' behavior is
> that
> 
>     when they pierced the normally quiet hum of a passenger waiting area
> with
> 
>     shouts of "Allahu Akbar"and deliberately engaged in
> terrorist-associated
> 
>     behavior that was sure to trigger suspicion, they exploited the fear
> that
> 
>     began with the Sept. 11 attacks. The imams, experienced travelers all,
> 
> 
>     counted on the security system established after 9/11 to kick in, and
> now
> 
>     they plan not only to benefit financially from the proper operation of
> 
> 
>     that system but to substantially weaken it--with help from the
> 
>     Saudi-endowed attorneys at CAIR.
> 
>     US Airways is right to stand by its flight crew. It will be both
> dangerous
> 
>     and disgraceful if the Department of Homeland Security, the Department
> of
> 
>     Transportation and, ultimately, our federal courts allow aviation
> security
> 
>     measures put in place after 9/11 to be cynically manipulated in the
> name
> 
>     of civil rights.
> 
> 
> 
>     Ms. Burlingame, a director of the World Trade Center Memorial
> Foundation,
> 
>     is the sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, the pilot of
> American
> 
>     Airlines flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11,
> 2001.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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